Notre-Dame

In 1900 Paris was building for the World's Fair, and Matisse, 30 years old and badly short of money, took paid work on the decoration of the Grand Palais, turning out garlands by the metre for the new exhibition hall. He had a studio on the quai Saint-Michel that looked across the Seine to the Ile de la Cite, and around that year he began painting what stood in front of the window. This is one of the earliest of those views. The top half is a hazy blue morning with the towers of Notre-Dame in shade, and the bottom half, the bridge and the barges and the people on the quay, is a crowd of turquoise, red, green and yellow. He was still coming back to the same window view 14 years later.